Poems that seek to go beyond the content of the experience and the observation, connecting the thought that emerges from the various fields of culture with feeling, fantasy and imagination—as metaphysical world view in connection with science tending toward something unitary in what de Robertis calls “the report of its presence in relation to the sense of life.” Always present in the poem we find sound, vibrations, movements, and the certainty is that energy is the matrix of the universe and everything is wave, fluctuation and harmony, and verses that seem to emerge from the study of Physics and Cosmology based on the poet’s understanding of the structure of the world generated by quantic events where there are quantum fields delineating space-time material and light, and where all space surrounding us is interwoven with quantum grains that vibrate between one event and another.

Lean, varied, existential, flexible poetry, telling us of life, the reality of being and of existing with a pronounced personalization of human vicissitude. And the verse flows fluidly or rattenuto to accompany the vibrations of a listening intent on “un aveu” of great emotional intensity.

– (About Diomedee) NAZARIO PARDINI

Diomedee was first published in Italy by Edizioni Joker, Novi Ligure, Alessandria in 2008.
Sovra il Senso del Vuoto was first published in Italy by Novastampa Ponsacco, Pisa in 2009.
Se la Luna fosse un Aquilone was first published in Italy by Editore Limina Mentis, Villasanta, Monza/Brianza in 2012.
I Quaderni dell'Ussero was first published in Italy by puntoacapo Editrice Novi Ligure, Alessandria in 2013.
Parti del discorso (poetico) was first published in Italy by Marco del Bucchia Editore, Massarosa, Lucca in 2014.

And if these shrill bent-neck heron cries were mine
if only it were me who spread out over every new leaf
foamy snake saliva the ordeal
I drag myself through every time instinct arrogant reason and
ordinary
thoughts snaring (not to be told even to themselves)
they crush without understanding the purpose of living
I ask myself at times especially at night
when I’m not inclined to suffer. . .
as in full daylight
when the urine from cats is exhaled all around
my words pounced with closed eyes
between intermittent pollen gusts
and it still wouldn’t change the sense of all of it
or bring back fragrances of faraway lands
because the present links me with so much pain
My story is only licking secrets wounds
with gestures that burn like the sun’s scorching rays
not soft waves or echoes of pleasant voices.
I think sometimes that life can be happy
without understanding
or feeling flattened by new ideas
so my face is never in contortions and I’m never terrified
or afraid they might do
more harm.

When Insomnia

When insomnia, infinite, endless
leaves you thinking you’re false, and contemptible,
and vices run wild, and the liar’s only interest is
the dark passions of a world seducer and perverse,
thoughts corrupt, instinct waters brutal appearances,
hyenas that want to go out
into the open into the domain of invisible creatures.
When the extreme states of the soul, unwittingly,
look for the place where solitude is most bitter, then, only then,
does the spirit revolt, pry off the crosses and the prison,
privilege vindicates existing, the right demands
surviving, the void breaks the piercing silence
to listen to sounds, quivers, harmonies.
As ruthless and gentle as a cat walking around
at night the mind ranges beyond the limits,
the soul waters itself with stars, with crowding words, new images.

It’s all in a flight of those pointy wings
in the beautiful season
lit in twilights
tinged with rust
edges of blue layers
windward
joyous
Life is life
Vit vit
vit vit piercing trills
Just moans from the attics
tears like holy water so much of it
pooling inside abandoned nests
with damp edges of straw and mud
The gaze drops to the gutter blocked
by the memory pedestal . . .
hoarse regrets

Grumbling frogs would croak
and bats real flying foxes
mocked the dogs’ barking
As soon as creeping darkness took over
the Moon’s clearness
cut through anxiety and fears
In the blink of an eye
memory recalled
all the names . . .
For good luck even
the Unspeakable

Narcissus poeticusApril snow . . . numbs

The day I took myself seriously
I took on boredom fire
the result was rain and snow
and sound dry with drops
in the cracks between the shingles
falling from beams onto
the floor together with tears
until the Fool that’s in me
lost mildness the grating voice
stained with wine darkening
the door opened up almost like a challenge to the heavens
an opening for lunacy’s airy lightning
There was a narcissus to reanimate
one second before freezing to death

Ask yourself . . .
how the slow
drifting of clouds
can take away
visibility
of mountains
conceal their unchangeable
contour
cover them like forms of every thing
that stops showing itself
to be seen
through a vent that opens
onto the world
In this return to nothing
in this no longer being
finite things
do not appear
To their dispersal I raise a glass
all the way to . . . annihilation

Observing ungainly flyingboats
rising from seafloors to show
what the world was
Waters beneath the heavens
one place alone
Secret currents once again pouring forth silent
silvery fish with four bulging eyes
They dart smooth from seas onto the shapeless earth
resurgent glimmerings
Waters beneath the heavens
one place alone
split between abyss and shores
of the same lost paradise

And you look at the sea

And you look at the sea, quiet, from above, with seagull eyes,
diffident, from close up you see it foam
with imperceptible movements, minute bodies clashing with each other,
splitting off, breaking off, no truce, now here, now there,
in every orientation, in every place, sparkling waves
in sunlight as if they were being moved by an invisible wind blowing
on surfaces where nothing remains of what walks on water.
Nothing in itself directs the sea waves, only the eternal slide.
Clear identity of the cliffs, of the finest sands,
it is not an object, it has no arguments,
it is only a flow of events, like your naked body
made up of unstable molecules. And the closer the wave approaches,
the more the soul transcends the just-lived moment,
before being released, once again, into the sea.
Ask yourself if the mind is the roadstead where seagulls
land, the port where raucous voices and the oppressive
feeling in one single thought are cruelly left to silt.
That’s why you fear the world beyond the buoy, beyond the deepest
blue, rowing in gloom, illusive horizon.

Atoms of space, closed paths, the spheric perfection of rings
interweaving, with others, airy nets of relationships giving life
to spacetime, with its unbelievable curvature, until
a white dwarf, degenerate star, evanescent, meant
the surface of the universe is curved, incontrovertible proof,
consequence of the mass of celestial bodies contents.
Rope that bends under the weight of the rope walker. The cosmos
is one big trembling, a great vibrating. The beauty of sounds and colors,
multiple resonances, tonal ambiguity. Sound arriving
from silence is open. Silence belongs to sound. The totality
of possible sounds, neutral ash-gray, is a form of silence. White
gray, which candor defends, is the union of all of the colors.
Color is the cadence of light. From the low frequency red emerges
to violet’s preeminence. The great cyclicity is an advantage to energy.
Sound calls, color, sustained by light and shadow, responds,
dominating far beyond the solar system, the red of giant Antares
and of Betelgeuse, desperately in terminal phase, rages.
The dazzling white of Sirius and Vega, more radiant than the Sun,
in a Universe where the black-gray of space void between galaxy
and galaxy stands out. From the pavilions of the world, forwardlooking
Pythagoras was listening to that concert of colors and sounds,
with their numerical correspondences, archtypes of the form, waves
running away along stretched
What other man had such influence in the field of thought?
Dante, the divine, surely had perceived the sound of the spheres,
recognized as an act of the mind: l’armonia che temperi e discerni.

Newton climbed onto the shoulders of giants with hisprogression of colors
and light for seeing farther, relating the world, where particles emerge
from nothing, and fade away, out of reach, with their strangeness,
even as rays of stars lost within their motion. Deep blue is a void
with much to lavish. Processes, structures, emotions over
new forms come to life, concrete reality shows itself
from this source. The vision of these hazy, distant worlds
is out of focus. The intention is not to nullify distance, caving
in to disorder, to chance, but to recognize them. At the same time new
crossings open up towards the invisible at the limits of places of absence.

And every unsettling concept about the Universe always surprises us.
What is it that’s guiding reality? Ask! Questions mysteriously
live with us. Ask! Ask always, and again.
He, Pound, would have wanted the cold waves of his mind to fluctuate
so the world would wither like a dead leaf
and be swept away in order to find that woman, alone.
But here, beyond the intellect, are quantum fields, fluctuating,
interstellar space. It’s this thrashing around of quanta electing
quark waves particles/the real brick and mortar of the world/. Their dances,
their encounters, will not hold the same fascination as Francesca,
but even these are a mousikè, a framework of beauty, of absolute truth.

Little besides man inside the labyrinth of existence
with his desperate loyalty to the planet, withers more than the dead leaf.
Lost, in the end, his own ashes like minute, dark gray
cosmic dust. Pure expressions of interior necessity, the canvases
of Kandinsky set the senses on fire, went beyond the limits, single
perceptions. Thought penetrates into the stellar Universe to read
the animation inside it that escapes us, in order to share in the irrepressible
pulsar.

About Ubaldo de Robertis

UBALDO de ROBERTIS, born in 1942 in Falerone in the Marche region of Italy, died on May 11, 2017 in Pisa, at age 75. His first collection of poetry, Diomedee, was published in 2008. Sovra il Senso del Vuoto was published in 2009; Se la Luna fosse un Aquilone was published in 2012; I Quaderni dell'Ussero was published in 2013. He is the author of two novels, Il tempo dorme con noi (Voltaire Edizioni), which received the 1999 Giovanni Gronchi award, and L'Epigono di Magellano (Edizioni Akkuaria), which was awarded the 2014 Premio Narrativa Fucecchio. His numerous literary prizes include the 2006 il Primo Premio Torre Pendente, and the 2009 Primo Premio Orfici-Omaggio a Dino Campana for Sovra il Senso del Vuoto. Parte del discorso (poetico) was awarded the 2016 Premio Internazionale di Poesia, Narrativa, e Saggistica. His works have appeared in Soglie, Poiesis, La Bottega Letteraria, Libere Luci, and Homo Eligens. A researcher in nuclear chemistry, he was a member of the Accademia Nazionale dell'Ussero di Arti, Lettere e Scienze.